


Pride and Prejudice and Power Armor

by Arinandron



Category: Fallout (Video Games), Fallout 4
Genre: Angst and Romance, Danse is such a cotton headed ninnymuggins, F/M, Plot Spoilers, Power Armor is both literal and figurative
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-12-27
Updated: 2021-01-06
Packaged: 2021-03-10 23:21:01
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 1,941
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28355358
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Arinandron/pseuds/Arinandron
Summary: It is a truth universally acknowledged that a person in ownership of a Power Armor suit is of interest to the Brotherhood of Steel. Our F!SoSu meets with a stranded recon team in Cambridge, only to have her fur raised by a certain Paladin. He thinks she’s a clueless backwater bumpkin, she thinks he’s an uptight stick in the mud.Are they right or are their opinions based on assumptions?Crappy summary but read anyway!
Relationships: Paladin Danse & Female Sole Survivor, Paladin Danse (Fallout)/Original Female Character(s), Paladin Danse/Female Sole Survivor
Kudos: 10





	1. Cambridge

Thud, thud, thud.

The heavy mechanical footsteps echoed through the darkness as the lone figure made its way along the forgotten highway. A beam of light bobbed up and down with each forceful footfall, an odd synchronicity that surely would have amused the person inside had she not been focused on the radio signal.

A distress call, it was. From the Cambridge Police Station. Now, it had been a long time since Wren had been up and awake but she still knew where to go. She thought of it as kind of like riding a bike; you never truly forget. With that in mind she passed by the foreboding structure of the Corvega Assembly Plant, wary of the small figures she could see wandering up and down the dark catwalks. A lesson she’d learned quickly upon waking up from her nap was that people weren’t so friendly these days and it was best to keep a safe distance. 

The signal was becoming clearer as she passed a disused junkyard and passed an old filling station on the roadside. The voice was male and spouted off some numbers she didn’t recognize, a call sign maybe. She thought sadly that Nate would likely know what to do since it sounded military in nature. Wren pushed the thought out of her head, refusing to dwell on the trauma. He was gone and there was nothing she could do.

Distant sounds of gunfire sounded from the dilapidated buildings ahead of Wren. She decided to speed up in hopes of aiding the mysterious radio caller. She clumsily weaved through an alleyway before stopping at a wooden gate, pushing it open with her armoured shoulder. The sight before her was brutal.

“Check your fire, civilian in the compound!” A man in similar armor was firing wildly at waves of feral ghouls, his laser rifle glowing bright red in the night. Piles of bodies and glowing embers surrounded him, all the while more and more of the gangly creatures crawled from the nooks and crannies between the ancient rusted shells of cars. Wren immediately took out her pump action shotgun and started firing at will. She was by no means a marksman but with the spread of the buckshot she managed to down a few ghouls before the air went eerily silent. Both Wren and the man stood still and waited for any sign of life before cautiously bolstering their weapons. Wren sighed in relief that the conflict was over but felt apprehension once more as the man strode up to her and gave her a cold, somewhat suspicious stare.

“We appreciate the assistance, civilian, but what’s your business here?” Wren recognized it as the same voice from the distress call. She relaxed a touch before she awkwardly cleared her throat.

“I heard your distress call,” she replied, her voice cracking for a moment. “It sounded like you needed a hand.”

“I didn’t think anyone would hear it, let alone respond to it,” the man mused. “Are you from a local settlement?”

She didn’t know how to respond at first. She could say Sanctuary Hills but that was far from an actual settlement. “I’m from Vault 111.”

The man’s eyes widened in surprise. “You’re a Vault Dweller? Not many people would admit to that.”

Wren frowned within her helmet. “Why?”

“Vault Dwellers are viewed by some as hiding from the wasteland,” he explained. “People up here are trying to survive while people underground are safe and secure.” He shrugged, “I’ve never met a Vaultie before so I can’t say one way or another.”

Wren snorted. “Oh yeah, vaults are really safe. Safe enough that anyone can just wander in, murder your husband and steal your baby.” The man’s brow furrowed as he processed her sarcasm. 

“I don’t know about all that but if you’re so inclined, we could use your help again. Our radio beacon is too weak to reach our comrades in the Capital Wasteland but scans reveal that a nearby facility has a part we need. Will you help me retrieve it?”

His brusqueness rubbed Wren’s fur the wrong way but she could never say no to a person in need. “Fine, I’ll help. Let’s go.”


	2. ArcJet Systems

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> A foray into the ArcJet Systems facility brings out glaring differences in Wren and Danse’s points of view.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I’m totally writing this stuff by the seat of my pants so there’s no real blueprint as to what will happen when. I may even rewrite the first chapter since it feels a little janky to me reading it back but IDK.

ArcJet Systems stood dark and tall against the darkness of the Commonwealth night sky. Wren could vaguely remember this place, something about jet engines or something like that. She remembered studying them in law school due to the extensive legal hoops the company had to jump through producing such volatile military equipment so close to Cambridge.  
Danse stopped in front of the main entrance and waited for her to catch up. Even though he had his helmet on Wren could already tell that her brief moment of reverie had annoyed the soldier. Annoyed and uptight, she thought. Danse didn’t even deign to call her by her name, just insisted on ‘civilian’. It felt degrading and, frankly, insulting. But Wren pushed that train of thought aside when he started to speak.  
“Listen up, civilian. We do this quickly and quietly. No theatrics, no hero stuff, got it?” His tone was stiff as though he was used to giving orders to unruly recruits. Wren scoffed lightly and kept her grip on her shotgun.  
“Anything else, oh my captain?” Wren offered sarcastically. Danse’s shoulders stiffened in an exaggerated sigh, likely of disappointment or at least exasperation. He opened the door and moved inside without another syllable.

Synths, he’d called them. To her they sounded like regular robots, no different from the mangled Protectrons they’d found in the back office. Danse made them sound like cunning and ruthless machines, hellbent on killing anything not made of plastic and steel. He thought she dismissed the idea of synths with a purposeful ignorance, maybe trying to push his buttons since she’d been nothing but bitingly flippant since they’d first met. Danse was beginning to wonder how isolated information about the Commonwealth was down in the Vaults since she barely made a noise of acknowledgment upon his explanation of the Institute and its nefarious enforcers.   
Wren had uttered a yelp of surprise upon finding humanoid machines advancing on them once she’d opened the passlocked terminal and opened the lab doors. Danse was focussed on not dying and wiping out the synths but a small grin of satisfaction crept on his hidden face and she muttered a ‘holy shit’ under her breath once all the robots were scattered parts on the cracked floor tiles. Maybe now this civilian would offer him more of the respect he was due as a paladin of the Brotherhood of Steel.  
They advanced down several tight hallways before coming down a corridor lined with ceiling turrets. Danse immediately dove for cover, taking out a turret before moving on to the next set of barriers. He looked around for Wren but she was busy typing into a terminal, completely indifferent to the present danger. He felt his hackles rise at her lack of concern for not only her safety but for his own. She tapped a few final keystrokes and a loud buzz shut off the defenses just as he was about to shoot the last turret. He stood and marched angrily towards her while she picked up a magazine off of a desk top.  
“Are you trying to get us killed, civilian? You are meant to be following my orders, not dithering on a terminal!” Wren’s head turned sharply as she tucked the magazine away.  
“Excuse me? I was shutting off those turrets before you got your tin-man ass filled with bullets!” He couldn’t see her face but he imagined she was red with fury. “Work smarter, not harder, and maybe you’ll manage to pull that stick out of your ass.”   
“Watch your tone, civilian!” Danse yelled back. “You are here helping the Brotherhood of Steel and as a Paladin I am due a certain amount of respect!”  
Wren again scoffed and passed by Danse through a doorway, roughly bumping his metal shoulder with her own. “Your Brotherhood means shit to me,” she said. “And my name is not ‘civilian’. It’s fucking Wren.”

It was a bit satisfying to watch Danse get blasted with jet fire while she remained in the control room. The synths around him were reduced to piles of glowing embers before the automated P.A announced the test was over and the doors reopened. Wren made her way out and put on a forced voice of concern. “Oh my god, are you okay?!”  
“G-got cooked by those flames,” Danse forced out. “I’d be dead if not for the armor. It looks like you’ve got the power on again so let’s get going.” He approached the elevator and pushed the button with one of the suit’s massive metal fingers. The elevator arrived and they both squeezed inside. Elevators could be cramped enough but fitting in two full suits of Power Armor was something of a feat. When they arrived at the top, Wren stepped out first and made her way up to the top control room already spying several synths inside. She took a deep breath, checked her gun was loaded, and barrelled into the room with something resembling a war cry.  
One synth was blasted in the stomach, another had its head shorn off. She bashed the third in the head with the butt of his shotgun and delivered a swift kick to the fourth; the fifth and sixth were finished off by Danse’s laser fire.   
“Search the bodies for the Deep Range Transmitter,” he ordered. “One of them must have it.” She found it on the body of the fourth synth, the one she’d given the Spartan treatment. Danse waited by the elevator while she rummaged around a chest to gather various munitions and parts.   
They emerged into the bunker behind the facility, Danse sweeping the area before calling it safe. He waited as Wren approached him for a post-mission briefing.   
“That could have gone better,” he said tersely.   
“I thought it went quite well,” she countered, putting away her shotgun. Again Danse’s shoulders tensed inside the armor before he spoke again.  
“We were caught completely unprepared,” he growled. “You defied my orders, openly disrespected my authority as leader and saw fit to deviate from our objective to seek out pointless junk. I don’t see how that could’ve gone any worse.”  
“You could be dead, you uptight jarhead. All in all, living to see another day is a win for me. Now, unless you’ve got anything else to say, I need to be on my way to Diamond City.”  
Danse spluttered at the insult and shook his head in disbelief. Where on earth did this woman get off telling him how to run his ops?   
“Just take this as payment for your services,” he said before handing her his laser rifle. “You’ll do better with this than that poor shotgun. And before you bite back, I don’t need this weapon. There are more back at the station.” Wren took the rifle reluctantly and nodded.  
“If you should ever choose to stop doing solo work, consider coming back to Cambridge and joining our cause. Insolent and disrespectful as you may be, you fought well and think quickly on your feet. Soldiers with those qualities do well in the Brotherhood.”  
Wren let out a laugh, one that held stress and disbelief in equal measure. “Not on your life, jarhead. My husband was military and it made my life hell. It’ll be a cold, desperate day before I come crawling back.” She turned without another word and set off to the south, away from a perplexed and frankly relieved Paladin Danse.


End file.
